A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left.
Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Reaction to Osborne's speech

The YouGov daily tracker poll that came out this evening reads:

Con 40% (-3)Lab 31% (+2)LD 18% (+2)

This is the best Labour poll rating since April and translates into a Tory parliamentary majority of only 4. The impact of Osborne setting out his slash and burn approach to the public finances seems to be worth up to 50 extra Labour MPs. After all, why would any of the 3 million public sector workers affected by Osborne's pay freeze but not Darling's one on the top 20% of their colleagues now vote Tory?

Or the over 2 million extra people who would lose their jobs, taking unemployment to 5 million, because of the deflationary impact of his measures turning the recession into a double dip one, according to economist David Blanchflower? He said of Tory plans to switch off Quantitative Easing:

"This is the most wildly dangerous thing I have seen in a hundred years of economic policy in Britain, [they are] showing no understanding of economics. To remove QE and cut public spending is like a return to 1937 — it could drive the economy into depression. This is the most bizarre set of economic policies I have ever heard.”

On behalf of Labour activists everywhere I would like to thank George Osborne for single-handedly kick-starting our General Election Get Out The Vote campaign.

6 Comments:

Arnold said...

This week has seen the mask finally slipping off the Tory Party, and voters have recoiled from the hideous visage beneath. 'Lord Gaga' Cameron publicly quaffing champagne in the midst of a recession is absolute madness. Good news for Labour. At last the Tories have had their very own 'Sheffield Rally'.

Although this comes with the usual caveat about polls, they do tend to tighten as an election draws near and tend to underestimate support for incumbents. Those factors alone aren't going to turn the election around for Labour, but do suggest to me that a hung parliament of some description is a realistic possibility.

Yes I agree but there are those who would say the same thing about Quantitative Easing.

The problem about QE is that is could create it's own bubble. The sole reason for the recovery of the FTSE is QE as the government is buying huge sums of bonds....this in itself is very dangerous. If this was to burst a stock market crash of up to 40% is very possible.

This sort of economic management is simply gambling. I would much prefer to go back to simple trading of real products rather than unknown bonds.

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About Me

Labour Party activist since 1988 - firmly on the moderate wing of the party. Member of Labour’s NEC 2010-2012. National Secretary of Labour Students 1995-6. Parliamentary candidate for Aldershot (2001) and Castle Point (2005). Hackney Councillor (Chatham Ward) 2002-2014, Labour Group Chief Whip 2002-09, Chair of Health Scrutiny 2010-2014. Supporter of Europe, NATO/nuclear deterrence, Israel, electoral reform. Guardian reader. Dad. Oxford resident. Unite union member. Employment history as a Labour Party Organiser, Local Government Political Assistant, Director at a Public Affairs company. All views expressed in a personal capacity. The rest will become evident from reading the blog.